


Secrets

by evienne



Category: Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Genre: Gen, Secret Identities, Twins, references to ninja storm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3539633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evienne/pseuds/evienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't be a ninja-in-training as well as a twin and not suspect that <i>something</i> is up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eirenical (chibi1723)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi1723/gifts).



> Written as a New Year's Treat for [eirenical](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi1723), who wanted more Conner with Eric and/or Derrick. (Sorry I didn't get around to Derrick.)

The day Eric gets let back into ninja school is the same day that Power Rangers show up in Reefside. So the two things balance each other out a bit, because, really, what are the chances that  _two months_  after Eric moved to Blue Bay Harbor a Ranger team pops up in the town he’s lived all his life? But he can’t be too bitter, because the whole thing would probably smart a whole lot more if Sensei Watanabe (the young one) had made the expulsion stick, and yet he only just called Eric and the others in and (begrudgingly, provisionally) informed them that they could come back. (Thank you, Hunter and Blake.)

Eric is pretty sure it’ll work out this time. After all, it really isn't that likely that they'll accidentally burn down a dojo again, right?

 

* * *

 

He’s so stuck on being the perfect student that he forgets to call Conner about the new Rangers in Reefside for nearly a week. Not that he expects Conner to be as excited as he is, because Conner is such a jock it’s actually funny and he couldn’t even understand why Eric wanted to enter the Academy when Eric had a shot at the VC position on the school team this year. But  _that_  reminds Eric that he got a text the other day with a lot of exclamation points about how the Reefside Waves were doing open tryouts and wasn’t that  _awesome_ which Eric completely forgot to reply to. He should probably congratulate Conner anyway.

“Didn’t get it,” Conner tells him after Eric asks when his first game is. His voice sounds flat.

Eric blinks at the wall of his bedroom. “You what?”

“I didn’t get it.”  

Eric is just floored. He's not even biased because Conner's his brother; it's just a plain and simple  _fact_ that Conner is that good. Everybody knows it. Conner bends it better than Beckham. All Conner had to do was show up at the tryouts and he had a spot. 

"What happened?" Eric demands. "Didn't you even try?"

There’s a long pause on the other end.

“Of course I tried,” Conner says at last, and there’s a world of bitterness in his voice. “Just didn’t make the cut.”

Eric knows deep down in the part of him that feels most like Conner that there’s more to it than that, but he also knows that Conner’s not going to tell him anything further tonight. “Sorry, bro,” he says, and for some reason he kind of feels like he probably shouldn’t mention the Power Rangers either. "Better luck next time."

“Yeah,” Conner says unhappily. "Next time. Heh."

 

* * *

 

Because he doesn’t want to rub it in, Eric waits a few weeks to let the sting of not making the Waves fade before he tells Conner that he was re-admitted to the Wind Academy.

“Oh,” says Conner. “I told them you flunked out.”

 

* * *

 

 _Them_  turns out to be Ethan and Kira, apparently Conner’s new best friends, though Conner keeps trying to pass them off as partners on some major science project. Eric meets them first on a weekend visit when he comes home to a Conner-less house and eventually tracks his brother down to some retro-ish café called  _Hayley’s Cyberspace_  where it seems absolutely nobody Eric remembers from school hangs out. Also, Eric is pretty sure that science project partners usually work on science projects when they spend time together, but there isn’t a textbook or a sparkly poster or even a diorama in sight on the table Conner is waving him over to.

The whole thing is just weird, and something about the three of them sitting together across from him like that  _bugs_ him, but the smoothies are genuinely fantastic, Ethan is hilarious to talk to, Kira is both sarcastic and very hot, and Eric decides he’s not going to worry about it.

“Your friends are pretty cool,” he tells Conner later when they’re walking home.

Conner just grins. That’s the last time he tries on the science project excuse.

 

* * *

 

It’s not until he’s driving back to Blue Bay Harbor and a news update cuts into the middle of a song to announce that the Reefside Power Rangers are battling yet another giant monster that Eric finally realizes what was bugging him about Conner and his friends. What was bugging him about what they were  _wearing_.

He slams on the brakes in the middle of the highway.

_“Nope.”_

 

* * *

 

So it’s crazy, but he keeps coming up with reasons to believe it.

All his old friends from school start reporting that Conner hardly ever hangs out with them anymore. Ethan and Kira look more and more muscled every time Eric sees them. Whenever he’s calling home and Mom mentions that Conner is out, usually the news that night is headlined by a Ranger battle. And then there’s the whole Doctor Oliver thing, which leaves Weirdsville if and only if he’s in on the whole thing too, like he’s their version of Sensei Kanoi or something.

It’s not conclusive, not by a long shot. But Eric is always testing the waters, like that time he's in the middle of an argument with Conner about how much Eric should be talking about the Wind Academy (another funny thing, how Conner’s suddenly developed a conscience regarding superhero secrecy) and Eric demands:

“So are you saying that if  _I_  was a Power Ranger, you wouldn’t want me to tell  _you_?”

And Conner just stops dead with a stricken look on his face.

“Yeah,” he says at last, and sort of looks like he hates himself. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”

 

* * *

 

Conner comes to stay a couple of days during the Reefside High fall break. They’re just goofing off one afternoon with a soccer ball in the park when Eric finally gets sick of Conner being a show pony and swings a roundhouse kick at the back of his brother’s head. He’d aimed to land shy by a couple of inches, intending only to give Conner a bit of a shock, but suddenly Conner is moving with almost impossible swiftness, grabbing Eric’s ankle in one hand and sweeping a leg behind Eric’s planted foot to bring Eric crashing to the ground on his back.

Eric blinks stars out of his eyes to see Conner standing over him, face set and clinical, fist curled and reaching back—

“Hey— _hey_!”

Conner's expression abruptly crumples up into something like horror. “Eric— _hell_.” His fist unclenches to make a hand that he pulls Eric to his feet with. “Dude, I’m so sorry—it’s just—you gotta be  _careful_ , okay?”

Eric waits until his own heart stops pounding in his throat before he asks: “Where did you learn that?”

Conner still looks rather white but he tries to laugh it off. “I dunno. Couldn’t let you have all the fun, right? You sure you're okay?"

“You’ve been taking martial arts lessons?”

“Nothing serious,” Conner says off-handedly, like Eric didn’t just see him perform a textbook leg sweep. Of course, Conner  _is_ naturally athletic; it’s not beyond possible that he’s just picked things up that easily. Except that there had been that look on Conner’s face, that look of cold calculation, as though he was figuring out the best way to take Eric apart, piece by piece, and that’s a whole lot harder to explain.  

Eric thinks about the reports from Reefside, about the Ranger who doesn’t seem to realize that the Power Rangers are the  _good_  guys. He finds himself staring at his brother’s white shirt instead of the red pattern on it, and though the doubt doesn’t last longer than a few minutes, he seriously considers for the whole of them that maybe he’s got it all wrong.   

 

* * *

 

It’s a few more weeks before he’s sure. That’s when suddenly something pointed and heavy and solid slams into the back of his head and sends him sprawling on his hands and knees in the middle of a waterbending class.

Tally and Kyle pull him upright again while he gasps for breath, the pain fading just as quickly as it came.

 “You okay?” Tally asks, staring at him with wide, concerned eyes.

He reaches around to feel the back of his head, but there’s nothing there, not even a bruise.

“Yeah, I think—” he starts, and then suddenly he feels sort of sick, like somebody’s turned him inside out and put him on show. Tally and Kyle catch him before he stumbles again and help him to the ground. He’s fumbling his phone out of his pocket before he even gets there.

Conner doesn’t answer a single call.

 

* * *

 

Eric isn’t able to get away until the next night, but he drives right down to Reefside without a stop. Conner’s Mustang is parked out the front of the house when he gets there, heat still rising from the bonnet in little curls of steam condensing in the cold air. Eric lets himself in the side door. 

Conner stares up at him from the long couch where he’s stretched out languorously in soccer shorts and an old T-shirt.  _Remember the Titans_  flickers on the TV in front of him. He's wearing his glasses, which sometimes he does if he's already taken his contacts out and still wants to stay up, but other than that he looks exactly like he usually does: perfectly whole and alive and definitely not in an ICU.

“You’re okay,” Eric says stupidly.

Conner blinks at him, and now Eric can see that maybe he's not _exactly_ himself: he's thoroughly tired out, like he's been to the gym and done a double session of training and run a marathon all in the same afternoon. "Nobody said you were coming."

“I thought—” Eric starts, more stupidly than ever. “I thought you…” He trails off, because he’s seen the footage in Blue Bay Harbor, everything that the Senseis had themselves put through during their time as Rangers, and he knows that none of them wear scars either. “Dude, do you  _ever_  check your phone?" 

Conner still looks confused, but reaches for the cell phone on the table beside him to click through the list of missed calls. His face changes, like he realizes what all this actually is, and Eric doesn’t miss the way he runs his hand through his hair and lingers a little on the back of his head. “Sorry,” Conner says at last, and makes one last attempt to maintain the façade. “Um. What’s up?”

Eric pauses. There’s a whole lot of things he could say, from accusation to congratulation to guilt-tripping—but maybe the ninja training is rubbing off, and maybe Conner’s got enough to worry about in his life without Eric adding to it.

“Homesick,” he lies at last.

Conner gets a sceptical look on his face, but this is a gift horse that Eric is giving him and he seems to realize he shouldn’t look it in the mouth.  

“Just call me back next time,” Eric adds.

“Okay,” Conner agrees, and Eric is pretty sure he doesn’t imagine the grateful look. Conner folds up his legs, leaving a square of couch for Eric. “Mom and Dad are out. You feel like pizza? I want pizza.”

Eric kicks Conner further out of the way and flops down on the opposite end. What else is there to say to your secretly-a-superhero brother?

“Sure,” he says while Conner tosses him the remote and jostles to get comfortable again. “I could eat.”  

 

* * *

 

It's months later, after they've both graduated (Eric rather better than expected: the Senseis were a lot nicer and more forgiving after the Wind Rangers randomly showed up in Reefside and beat up the Dinos for no reason he's ever found out), when Conner tells him about the plans he has for setting up a soccer camp program. The idea is bighearted and philanthropic and a whole bunch of other adjectives that Eric would have had a much harder time associating with his brother before this year. 

"I'm gonna need some help, though," Conner says, fingers rubbing absently at his bare left wrist while he looks at Eric hopefully. 

Eric sees the offer for the apology and the attempt to even things up it is. He feels suddenly, terribly proud of his brother.

"It's an awesome idea," he says sincerely, and he grins. "Let's go save the world one lonely kid at a time."


End file.
